At Dell World today Michael Dell pretty much said his company will produce a Windows 8 tablet.
He said that fondleslab sales on Android had failed to take off. Talking about tablets he said: "You'll see us very much aligned around the Windows 8 introduction."
He added that a range of slabs will be introduced.
The understanding …

Um no

hp sucks more

Not necessarily. Commenting this from the 2005 E510 machine that would have been so bad on Windows. WInXP died around 2006. Ubuntu 10.04 GNOME desktop + Compiz is gorgeous with just 1.5 G of RAM. Dell is a bit overpriced though

HP is actually the worst quality, imho Yes, I agree, Dell's Ubuntu offer is a joke.

so

Yes

I'm fairly certain it's the enterprise issue. There are three issues. Firstly, corporate IT departments simply aren't comfortable with iPads - they don't know how to develop for them, how to lock them down, or even how to buy them. Apple don't exactly go out of their way to befriend the channel or the enterprise market, and killing Xserve only added to that fear. Dell tablets running Windows are a familiar world to sysadmins.

The second problem is existing enterprise apps. Most large companies have built up a substantial body of Windows and web-based (IE6-based) apps. These can't be ported to iPad without significant expense, not to mention recruiting a whole new team of Objective-C developers. If you're the manager of a team of Microsoft developers who stands to lose resources, you're going to instil as much FUD as possible until your boss stops going on about iPad.

Finally it's an issue of perception. The iPad is perceived as a toy, not as a serious business tool. Nobody in their right mind is likely to buy a Dell Win8 tablet for home use. For businesses this also means they are less likely to be stolen.

Re: so...

[quote]So what does Win8 give that Android doesn't?

Have you had your head in a bucket for the last 6 months? don't you realise windows 8 will have a new file copy dialog that more accurately predicts how long it will be until the file copy is completed!! oh and probably a few other things that nobody has really decided on yet.

Work

Yes, work - and that will do nicely thank you. OK, lots of people might not buy a tablet because it reminds them of work, but lots of people might start to notice them too, and think, good enough for work, good enough for me. Hard to get inside other people's mindset. I will stick with my android tablet for a while though. Beer, because it is Friday.

"So what does Win8 give that Android doesn't?"

* Genuine innovation in the GUI department?

Android follows the traditional GNU and F/OSS approach of "sincerely flattering" commercial products, while claiming to be morally and ethically superior on the grounds of, er, uhm, something to do with "openness"—whatever the hell that is defined to be this week.

At least Microsoft are actually trying a different approach to the multi-touch user experience.

* The option to switch to the traditional WIMP GUI when needed?

This has been frequently derided as giving Windows 8 something of a dual identity, but there is logic to it: WIMP at the office desktop; Metro on the move. It's not the most elegant solution, and there are bound to be some glitches and bumps to be ironed out in future releases, but it'll be "good enough" for most corporate buyers...

* ... corporate friendliness.

This is the crucial component. BOFHs are familiar with Windows, and corporate applications are usually written for Windows, not OS X or iOS. Granted, VMs can help with this issue if you really want to go the Apple way – and Objective-C 2 isn't *that* f*cking difficult to learn; I picked it up in a day! It's a hell of a lot easier to get along with than the vastly overrated C++ – but ultimately, if you can get to keep the status quo without spending money on programmers, that's a win for the CTO.

Microsoft "gets" corporate IT. Sure, they've dropped the ball on occasion, but MS are fundamentally a developer tools company that just happens to sell a convenient platform for those tools to run on and target. Windows 8 is their attempt to extend that platform into the tablet space.

Apple are happy to play on the peripheries, as much for pragmatic reasons—their own CEOs would naturally prefer to have their own products in their pockets all day—but have never been particularly interested in stuffing iMacs into the business world's offices. They're a *consumer* oriented company first and foremost, so they're not really competing with Microsoft in this sector.

Android has no clue where it wants to be, or who it is for. And no, most people have no idea what "Android" actually is. They may have seen the logo. They might think it has something to do with compatibility, but like the old "MSX" standard, there are enough differences between devices that it's nowhere near as simple as Android's advocates make it out to be. An app you've bought for your current Android phone is not even guaranteed to be *available* for your next one, due to form-factor issues, hardware differences and more. It's just not that consistent an experience for the user.

This isn't helped by the walled gardens operated by Android licensees and phone service operators. The hypocrisy from the F/OSS community is incredible.

My brother's iPhone 3GS was launched in 2009. Without any jail-breaking, he's received free upgrades iOS 4 and, this week, to iOS 5. At the same time as later models received the same upgrades. How many Android devices do you seriously believe will see that level of support? Google's Nexus devices, perhaps? You can talk about "planned obsolescence" until you're blue in the face, but the *only* platform that seems to make a virtue of this practice is... Android.

Similarly, Windows is well-known for regular patches and updates, all made available *directly* from Microsoft, on the day of release, to all devices, regardless of manufacturer.

And how much is that?

In any case, I think it's a bit early to count Android out, now that Amazon has jumped into the market. They've been very good at selling things so far.

Personally, I don't find tablets of any sort at all interesting or desirable; but among those who do, I don't see much reason to believe that Win8 tablets will compete particularly well. And if they do, I expect it will be almost entirely due to the "enterprise" factor. I don't expect the Metro UI will drive significant sales. Most evidence suggests that most customers pay little or no attention to user experience when making purchasing decisions.

Dell USP

Hot News: Dell touting to be Microsoft's and Intel's bitch

You rush out some ill-thought models built by Quanta or Kopal or Foxconn against the Ipad find they don't sell and you blame the OS? Well failed Mr Dell. Samsung and HTC are showing what can be done with Android if you are prepared to spend your own money on hardware and software development. You can't expect Google to give you it al, can you?

Run off to Microsoft and Intel for a big marketing budget incentive and everything will be better. Don't forget to turn off the lights when you leave.

re: Hot News: Dell touting to be Microsoft's and Intel's bitch

Er, haven't you seen all the fuss about Windows 8 on ARM? Microsoft didn't spend $millions on buying an ARM *foundry* license (a rare thing indeed) for nothing you know.

MS may well end up with all bases covered with everything from ARM phones/tablets with fancy GUIs to servers with a healthy dose of corporate integration throughout. That could be a hard thing to resist. It could wipe out Blackberry. If the offering attracts enough content it will make a big dent in Apple/Android too.